Texas A&M hires Jake Spavital as quarterbacks coach/co-OC

Texas A&M has hired Jake Spavital from West Virginia as the new QB coach and co-offensive coordinator.

Jake Spavital has accepted an offer from Texas A&M to be the Aggies' new quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator, the 27-year-old confirmed to CBSSports.com. Spavital, who has spent the past two seasons as West Virginia's quarterbacks coach, informed Mountaineers coach Dana Holgorsen of his decision late Thursday night.

“I am grateful for the opportunity that Dana has given me in my career,” said Spavital. “And I’m excited to get to A&M and continue with the success that they’ve had.”

A&M running backs coach Clarence McKinney, who handled play-calling duties for the Aggies in their 41-13 rout of Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl, also is expected to get promoted to the offensive coordinator role. With McKinney calling the offense, the Aggies set a Cotton Bowl record for total offense with 633 yards with quarterback Johnny Manziel accounting for 516 of them.

Spavital is regarded by many as one of the brightest young coaches in football. He helped groom Brandon Weeden (Oklahoma State) and Geno Smith (WVU) and now will be hands-on with Manziel, A&M's Heisman Trophy winning megastar. In two seasons with Spavital, Smith threw 73 touchdown passes against 13 interceptions while completing over 68 percent of his passes for over 8,500 yards.

Spavital will replace one of his mentors, Kliff Kingsbury who left A&M to become the head coach at Texas Tech last month. Spavital came to WVU with Holgorsen and had worked under the Mountaineers head coach at his previous stops at Oklahoma State and Houston. At WVU, Spavital proved to be a vital right-hand man for Holgorsen. Before teaming with Holgorsen, he was part of a No. 1-ranked offense at Tulsa, where he coached under OC Gus Malzahn.

A former quarterback at Missouri State, Spavital previously had worked for Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin as a graduate assistant coach at Houston.